


illicit affairs

by Lululemonee



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Investigative Duo, Journalist Betty Cooper, Light Smut, OOC, Protective Jughead Jones, Strangers to Friends to Lovers, You Have Been Warned, if you like barchie probably not for you, some violence, this is not barchie, wait is my bitterness showing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:54:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24033121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lululemonee/pseuds/Lululemonee
Summary: This is going to be a collection of one shots! Please, please, please give them a read!Betty is trapped in a loveless marriage...and then she meets her new photographer partner.
Relationships: Archie Andrews/Betty Cooper, Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones
Comments: 7
Kudos: 109





	1. Archie Ain't Home

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this was inspired by the song "Charlie Ain't Home" by ZZ Ward. Amazing song. Definitely give it a listen. Sub Charlie for Archie and you'll see my inspiration. Just a quick little one-shot of angst and romance. 
> 
> I love Bughead in every iteration. It makes me happy. I will keep writing these forever. LOL
> 
> Hope you like it!
> 
> WARNING: Mentions of domestic violence.

Archie Ain’t Home

Cool evening sunlight spilled through the delicate, translucent living room curtains that had been carefully chosen because they were pretty without being overly girly. The slanted rays of gold were steadily dimming into the blue of encroaching night. Those colorful beams of light drew Betty Andrews’ eye when she came through her front door after a rather grueling day at her office. Once upon a time in her life, she would have paused to admire the simple beauty of the sun’s illuminating effect. In the present, she merely examined them for any telltale signs of floating dust particles that might need to be cleaned.

Betty Andrews kept an immaculate house.

As she moved to close the door behind her, the not-too-distant rumbling of a motorcycle engine caught her ear. She hesitated only for a second before shutting the door firmly on the sound.

She walked into the kitchen where her husband was polishing off the last of a bottle of beer. God only knew what number he was on.

“You’re late,” he said.

Betty stared at him, her expression blank, “I told you I would be.”

“I guess I didn’t think you’d be this late.”

_Or you didn’t listen_ , Betty thought, her inner voice bitter and unkind.

She and Archibald Andrews had been high school sweethearts; the whole dull, boring, cliché – captain of the football team, blonde bouncy cheerleader, next door neighbors, prom AND homecoming king and queen. And she had been naïve enough at that point in her life to believe the maple syrup sweet fairytale of it all was the epitome of romance.

They moved into together right out of high school, Archie going to work for his father’s construction company and Betty pursuing her degree in journalism. They married less than a month after Betty’s college graduation.

Cut to five years later and Betty could barely stand the sight of him.

It was rare to see him without a beer in his hand and a sneer on his face.

It had started when his father, the beloved Fred, had passes two years after they had gotten out of high school and had really escalated when Betty had been offered an immediate position with a rather prestigious, well-known paper, _The Sun Times_ , right out of school and had started making more money than he did.

Archie Andrews did not like not being a breadwinner.

Apparently a strong woman who could pay the bills without his help threatened his fragile sense of masculinity.

That revelation had been a shock considering what an amazing man Fred had been. That had been the pivotal turning point for Archie, Fred’s death. It had scarred the son in deeper ways than Betty could ever know.

Fred would never have tolerated knowing that his son had raised his hand to a woman.

Those once kind caramel colored eyes narrowed at her, “I guess you won’t be cooking dinner tonight, huh.”

“I—“

“Cause it’s poker night and I’ll be late if I wait around for you to get it together long enough to actually make something edible.”

Anger and rage swirled in her stomach and the words flew out of her mouth for pure spite before she could consider the consequences, “Well, why don’t I just give you money for pizza, sweetie.”

She watched his lips as they pressed into a tight flat line and his eyes danced in mirthless contempt.

He took a step toward her and Betty automatically retreated, her back slammed hard into the double doored, stainless steel fridge.

“You can’t help yourself, can you?” he snarled, “You push, push, push, push…can you ever stop that fucking mouth? Maybe I should—“

His cell phone rang.

He answered and his tone immediately shifted to the light, jovial octave that their friends and family believed to be his true personality. “Hey, Reg!” he said, laughter laced in his voice even as he continued to glare at his wife. “Yea, I’m on the way. Hey, why don’t I grab a few pizzas for everyone?”

As he spoke, he lifted his free hand to rest against Betty’s neck. She felt her entire body tense up as his fingers lightly brushed over the delicate skin of her throat, more threat than caress. Betty’s felt her breathing grow shallow and shaky. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d had his hands around her neck.

He disconnected the call and shoved away from her. She watched him stalk from the kitchen to the hallway where he snatched her purse from the decorative hallway table. He dug her wallet out, pulled out a handful of twenties and dropped her still open wallet on the floor. Then, he walked out of the house.

Betty touched her hands to her throat and rubbed, forced a difficult swallow and then pushed away from the fridge. A moment later, she heard the loud roar of Archie’s new truck. He spent her money with gusto, but resented every single materialistic item that he bought. It was a vicious cycle. Betty walked to the kitchen door and flipped the lock before she headed upstairs to get into the shower.

When she’d climbed out of the shower, she wrapped a towel around her torso and began applying lotion to her limbs, her eyes lingered on the pictures that lined her dresser. There were photos of her mother and father, her sister Polly with her children, Juniper and Dagwood and her husband Jason, all of them together in their dress clothes for Easter Sunday, her wedding picture. Tucked in the back corner was her favorite picture. It had been snapped at an awards banquet for her office. She had been awarded an excellence in journalism award for an investigative piece that she had worked on for months to expose Penny Peabody, the CEO of a major bank of embezzlement, money laundering, and drug running. The award was shared between her and her photographer, as he had been integral to getting undercover photographic evidence for the piece. They had worked together for on that story; late nights, early mornings, lots of coffee runs and stake outs in the battered old jeep he drove when his motorcycle wasn’t an option.

The picture was the two of them, her tucked into his side, his arm draped casually over her shoulders. She was wearing a tight black dress and he was in a dark blue shirt that made his eyes look more blue than green; those eyes full of laughter and framed by the midnight black locks of hair that fell across his forehead.

It was good picture.

A noise behind her broke her from her reverie.

She turned and jumped at the dark silhouette in the doorway. Then she laughed.

“Jughead!” She gasped, “You scared me.”

Clad in faded jeans, a black leather jacket and biker boots, her photographer, Jughead Jones crossed the threshold of her bedroom with his motorcycle helmet in hand and his gorgeous thick mane of hair in arousing disarray.

“You know your backdoor was unlocked,” he said and set his helmet on her dresser before he closed the distance between them.

Betty draped her arms over his shoulders, “Hmm...how on earth could that have happened?”

“Its dangerous, you know,” he grinned back and settled his hands on her waist, “Never know who might wander in off the streets. There are bad, bad men out there.”

“God, I missed you all day!” she said and then slammed her mouth against his.

She would never get tired of the way Jughead kissed her; he kissed her with hunger, with need, with desperation. He kissed her with his whole body, with his tongue, with his teeth. One hand slid up to tangle in her damp hair and with the other, he pulled her hips tight against his own to show her _exactly_ how badly he wanted her.

Betty had never meant to be unfaithful. She was a loyal person and she had meant her vows when she made them…at the time. That was before Archie had started to use her as a punching bag.

The Peabody case was the first time Jughead had been assigned to her. He was considered the best photographer on the _Sun’s_ staff. He worked the high profile stories. When she had brought her theory on Peabody to her editor, Sierra McCoy, she had flat out said that Betty would need the best to get what she needed, heretofore, her partnership with Jughead Jones. A week and a half into the assignment, they had been on the first stakeout in Jughead’s jeep.

_Betty sat scrunched down low in the passenger seat of Jughead’s car. He was equally low in the driver’s seat with an expensive looking camera in his lap. She’d been taken aback at first by how attractive he had turned out to be. It was something that she had to work to ignore. His dark, unruly hair, piercing eyes, high cheekbones, a crooked smirk, and scattering of beauty marks on his face; he walked with a swagger that oozed a lazy confidence born of true self-assurance; everything seemed designed by some deity to be a beacon of sexual temptation. And there were moments that he looked at her, she would be willing to swear that he was feeling the exact same pull. They had been staring at the entrance to Penny Peabody’s apartment building for three hours._

 _“So, how does your husband feel about you being out this late?” he asked._

“ _Archie?” she said, “Archie probably doesn’t even realize I’m not there as long as take-out and beer still exists.”_

_His gaze locked on hers for a long, silent beat. During that silence, the only sound Betty could hear was the pounding of her own heart, the blood in her veins._

_“Forgive me for sayin’,” he finally said, “but your Archie sounds like a fucking idiot.”_

Jughead dropped his hand so both grasped Betty by the hips and then he thrust her back away from him. Her knees hit the edge of the bed and she fell back onto the soft mattress. Immediately, she raised onto her elbows and watched as Jughead shrugged out of his leather jacket and pulled his shirt over his head.

He leaned over her for another kiss and then trailed warm, wet kisses down her throat as he pulled her towel away from her body. He peppered kisses along her abdomen as he moved lower down her body. He grinned up her.

“Tell me what you want, Betts,” he said and swirled his tongue around her belly button.

“You know what I want, Jug.”

“I wanna hear you say it.”

She twisted her fingers into those silky strands, “Juggie, baby, I want you to go down on me.”

He smiled like a shark, “With pleasure.”

_One month in, two monumental things happened. The first was that they got their first break on the story. Penny Peabody showed up at her apartment at three in the morning with Malachi Martinez, a known gang member and drug dealer. They were clearly inebriated and on their way for a tryst, hanging all over each other, laughing, and touching._

_Jughead and Betty both sat forward in their seats, Jughead snapping away pictures and Betty speaking rapidly into her tape recorder. Once the two disappeared through the entrance of the building, Jughead, high on elation had turned to face Betty who was also grinning ear to ear._

_That was when the second thing happened. Jughead’s gaze zeroed in on her._

_“What is that? Is that bruise?” he asked, his hand moving as though he would touch the dark purple mark on her hip that was revealed when the hem of her shirt rode up._

_Betty grabbed the material of her shirt and yanked it down._

_“Where did that come from?” he asked._

_“I—it’s nothing,” she stammered._

_She watched as Jughead clenched his teeth so hard his jaw knotted, “Who did that to you?”_

_“Juggie-“_

_“Who put their hands on you, Betty?”_

_“It was an-“_

_“Don’t say accident.”_

_Betty took a deep breath and then laughed. She laughed and rubbed her hands over her face and then started crying. Crying morphed to guttural, hysterical sobs that she couldn’t calm or control. Jughead reached across the car and pulled her into his lap, wrapped his arms around her and held her tight against him. He stroked a gentle hand over her hair and murmured nonsensical words of comfort in her ear._

Jughead ran the flat of his tongue over her clit and brought Betty to her second orgasm. He worked her through it and once she came down from the wave, he pressed two kisses into her inner thigh and then made his way up her body.

“Coop,” he breathed and licked up her throat, “you’re beautiful, you know that, right.”

She reached up and clasped his face between her palms, “Jughead Jones, I love you.”

“God, I love you.”

He licked into her mouth as Betty fumbled to open the buttons of his jeans. “I need you, Juggie,” she rasped, “I need you, now.”

He gave her a quick, sharp nip at her chin and pushed the jeans from his hips. Betty traced her hands over his torso, his neck, his shoulders, his arms, any part of him that she could reach. She loved touching his body. She loved him. He kind of sneaked up on her that way.

He reached down, caught her behind the knee, and hiked her leg up around his hip before he pushed into her warm, welcoming body.

_It had been an accident. She hadn’t meant for it to happen at all the first time._

_Betty and Jughead had been in the office, compiling what they had gathered so far on the Peabody story. Two months in, they both knew they still had a long way to go but the information that they had was promising and they could tell they were making progress._

_On a loud sigh, Jughead sat back in his chair and ran both hands through his hair, “I’m starting to go cross-eyed, Coop. I need a break. Can we go get food or coffee or something?”_

_“We ate literally an hour ago, Juggie.”_

_“I’m starving.”_

_“Of course you are,” Betty laughed. She reached over and patted his thigh, “Alright, whiney, let’s go get you some sustenance so you can focus.”_

_He had taken her to an adorable little diner where he had plied her with French fries and milkshakes and stories from his childhood. He had had a rough life, joined a gang at fifteen that was led by his father and then busted his ass to get out of it and put his self through college. But the stories that he shared about his friends Sweet Pea and Fangs were quite humorous. Betty couldn’t remember the last time she had laughed so hard._

_When they got back the office, Betty was still chuckling even as Jughead punched the button for the elevator. She didn’t stop laughing until the elevator shuttered to a stop and the lights blinked off._

_“Juggie?” she cried and grabbed his arm._

_The emergency lights flickered on and washed the small metal box in red._

_“Calm down, Betts,” Jughead said and wrapped his arm around her, “we’ll be back on the move in a few minutes.”_

_“I don’t like being trapped, Jug,” Betty said and burrowed more tightly against his chest._

_The elevator lurched again. Betty gasped and wrapped both arms aroung Jughead’s waist. Jughead brushed a lock her hair behind her ear._

_“Shh, Betts,” he soothed, “It’s okay.”_

_His hand cupped her cheek and tilted her face up to look at him, “It’s okay, Betty.”_

_As she had looked up into those stormy, kind eyes, it was as though she wasn’t in control of her own actions anymore. She lifted on her tiptoes and kissed him. Jughead pulled back at once. He released his hold on her and stepped to the other side of the car. He pressed his palms hard into his eyes and paced back and forth like a caged animal._

_Betty covered her mouth with her hand, “Oh, God. Oh, God, Jug, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”_

_He froze and his gaze snapped to her with laser focus, “Are you?”_

_The question caught Betty off-guard, “What?”_

_“Are you sorry that you kissed me just now?”_

_“I’m sorry I made you uncomfortable.”_

_“That’s not what I asked.”_

_Betty took a breath, “No.”_

_And then as though his tether had snapped, Jughead had her pressed against the wall, his mouth hot against hers, his kiss forceful and needy. He was a starving man and she was his banquet._

Jughead and Betty were completely lost in each other; a mass of entwined limbs and breaths and kisses; hands and mouths greedy for the taste and feel of one another. Betty raked her nails across Jughead’s back, dug into his flesh, wanted to absorb into him. Jughead bit down on her clavicle and then soothed the love bite with his tongue. They rolled across the mattress, tangled in a sea of cotton sheets. Neither of them noticed the headlights cut through the window and across the headboard.

Neither of them heard the front door open.

Neither of them heard the footsteps on the stairs.

Neither of them heard anything until two large hands caught hold of Jughead, one on his bicep and the other in his hair, and yanked him violently away from Betty. Jughead flew across the room and slammed into Betty’s dresser, sending her photographs crashing to the floor.

“Archie!” Betty cried as wrapped the sheet around her body to cover herself.

“What the fuck is this?” Archie bellowed. He started to move toward Betty, Betty scrambled backward on the bed, and Jughead caught Archie in a headlock and pulled him back.

Betty watched her husband throw an elbow into her lover's stomach. Jughead was strong and lean, roped with natural muscle. But Archie worked construction, manual labor. He was built. He outweighed Jug by probably twenty-five pounds. Jughead doubled over from the blow. Archie turned and punched Jughead in the face and Jughead went down. Archie wasted no time. He leapt on Jughead, straddled him and wrapped both of his hands around Jughead’s neck.

Betty screamed and crawled to the foot of the bed toward them, “Archie! Archie, please let him go! This is my fault. Please stop hurting him.”

“Oh, I haven’t forgotten about you,” Archie snarled, “After I kill this son of a bitch, I’ll deal with you.”

Jughead clawed at Archie’s hands, tried to reach his eyes, but his movements were slowing and his face was turning red. He was going to kill him. Archie was actually going to kill him. She had to do something. She had to stop him; to help Jughead. Sweet, kind, good Jughead. Betty searched the room. She abandoned her covers and ran across the room to the closet where she found the weapon she was looking for.

She wrapped both hands around the metal golf club and swung hard. She connected with Archie’s skull with a sickening _THWAP_. Archie fell to the side and released his grip on Jughead, and Betty swung again. Jughead rolled to the side and coughed.

He climbed to his knees and caught her by the arms and stopped her from swinging a third time.

“Betts, Betts, no more,” Jughead said and pried the club out of her hands.

“He was gonna kill you, Juggie.” Betty sobbed and turned into his chest as he wrapped his arms around her.

“But you stopped him,” Jughead said and kissed the top of her head.

“Oh, God,” she said, “Jug, is he dead? Did I kill him?”

Jughead kissed her again, the knelt down beside her husband and checked for a pulse. “He’s alive,” Jughead said, then stood. He found his jeans and pulled them on, “We need to call the cops, Betts.”

Betty looked around the room. It was like examining the pieces of her life, picture pink perfection but decomposing from the inside. Then she looked at Jughead; rumpled and human and kind and worried about her.

And she knew.

“No,” she said, “he’s alive. We’re not called the cops. We’re leaving.”

“What?”

“Do you love me, Jughead?”

“You know I do.”

“Do you wanna be with me?”

“More than anything.”

“Can I come stay with you?”

The widest, brightest smile she had ever seen broke across his face, “I’ll help you pack.”


	2. Author's Note:

Hello All! 

So, I have decided that this will be where I keep my one-shot stories. I am working on one right now that I haven't been able to get out of my head and I need to get it OUT of my head so I can focus on my multi-chapters. It is not quite ready but I hope to have it done by this weekend. 

I also wanted to ask for prompts. I don't have a tumblr or anything, so if you have an idea that you think it would be fun to have me tackle, leave it in the comments. 

Side note, I don't follow cannon anymore. F*** cannon. These will all be AUs because I can't bring myself to think about cannon without feeling a little sick to my stomach anymore. I know it is just tv show, but I was invested and I feel betrayed. Legitimately betrayed. With tonight's episode, they effectively destroyed everything that I loved about these characters and I'm done. I've been saying that I'mdone for a while, but they have officially succeeded in losing me. As far as I'm concerned, season 4 was the final season and I really hope the cast moves on to better things, because they are all superb. 

Now! The first story, and not gonna lie, the one I am working on now as well, are about Betty being married to Archie and then finding her true love with Jughead, but they don't all have to be along those lines! I am open to pretty much anything. 

Though, if cannon Betty wants to ruin her life with Archie, always being a second choice when it comes down to it, whatevs. I just hope they give Jughead the happiness he deserves. 

I'm sorry, is my bitterness showing? I'll put that away. 

Anyway, sorry for the rant but it was very therapeutic! Please give me some one-shot ideas! 

And don't worry! I'm still working on FV and Sanctuary! ;-) 

Kisses to all. Bye now. 

**Author's Note:**

> So that's it! I hope you enjoyed it! 
> 
> I will be updating "Faithless Vengeance" this weekend! 
> 
> But let me know what you thought of this little nugget. Leave a kudos or a comment. I appreciate all of it!
> 
> Kisses to all. Bye now.


End file.
